It’s the first time I will be attending such an event, and will get to meet around 20 other bloggers from around the world; some I have met before, others I’ve got to know through sharing our blog stories, and most who I have yet to meet. We have a busy itinerary and while I certainly won’t look for any sympathy for a paid-for trip to southern Spain, I imagine that our hosts will want us to experience as much as possible in the shortest time. We will visit Benidorm and Denia before arriving in Valencia for the qualifying round of the race and the race itself. There’s also time in our itinerary for activities and visits that have a personal interest to us and our blog readers.

I’ve watched with some interest in how other such trips have come and gone: bloggers travelling to places near and far, occasionally alone but usually in groups, and then posting at every step of their journey on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and on their blogs. For the blogger it is the chance to generate content for their blogs and raise their profile, usually with a view to increasing the advertising pull of their blog. It is also the opportunity to visit somewhere new without having to put their hand in their pocket. For the sponsors it is a chance to showcase their destination to a wider market; the organisers of this event expect to reach an audience of 1.7 million people through our collective blogging, posting and tweeting.

These are impressive numbers on the face of it and certainly make an argument for those who say that social media is now where destinations should be focussing their efforts, rather than the traditional print media.

But what’s in it for me as one of the bloggers? I was very pleased to be invited on this trip, but there needs to be a good reason for me to take the time to travel to Valencia. If I take a trip for pleasure I’ll normally travel with my wife; however impressive this itinerary looks and however good the company will doubtless be, there have to be benefits to my business. So what are they?

Well, if I consider my income at the moment it is split between three main sources: copywriting, freelance writing (corporate magazines) and third party blogging. The mix is roughly 50%, 25%, 25% with the largest share of my earnings coming from copywriting (website content, information and marketing brochures, etc). What’s missing here? Anyone who runs a blog will see I haven’t mentioned my own blog as an income source. I don’t consider myself a professional travel blogger and have no desire to become one. Aside from a few pennies for ads, my blog serves as a shop window for my work, and indeed most new clients have browsed 501 Places at some point before I’ve started working with them. Yes, it’s a glorified portfolio. (It’s also hugely enjoyable and a chance to experiment freely with my writing; the two main reasons I invest so much of my time in it).

Here are my main objectives from the trip:

1. Networking. The chance to meet other bloggers and tourism officials and spend time learning from them and sharing our stories. I have found work from the most unlikely and indirect sources in the past, and have learned to remain open to new possibilities when they arise. Besides which, it’s always a pleasure to make new friends with a shared interest.

2. Material for 501 Places. There is a danger that a dozen or more bloggers might write the same material if they are spending days at a time together. I’d like to think I’ll take my own perspective on what I see and experience, and create my posts in my own style. I’m not very good at writing destination or product reviews, nor very interested in all honesty; I’ll leave that to others. I’ll be looking for stories that fit in with the theme of my blog, and expect that I’ll find these from chatting with other bloggers as well as from the destination itself. After all, I don’t want to experience Blogger’s Dip, as my friend and fellow blogger Andy Hayes so eloquently describes.

3. Personal curiosity. I have never been to an F1 race and have to admit to never watching a full race on the TV. I’m a football and cricket man myself. But the chance to see a race at close quarters is a rare opportunity to witness a spectacular event, and I didn’t want to pass it up. Then there’s the whole idea of a bloggers’ trip. I have a dark vision of it being like a prolonged episode of Big Brother. I guess I’ll find out – that would certainly provide a lot of stories to share later.

Yes, I’m away from my desk for a few days, but the world will still be here when I get back. I’ve worked hard in the last few days to be on top of my ongoing and immediate work deadlines, and am still contactable by clients in any case; for me this flexibility is the greatest benefit of freelancing.

So for the next few days I’ll enjoy the hospitality that’s offered to me, take the opportunity to meet the many people with whom I’m spending the trip and ensure I gather plenty of material for the the benefit of the Valencia Tourist Board, and my own. I’m looking forward to the experience, and learning at first hand what a blog trip is all about; bring it on!

(If interested you can follow the progress of the trip on Twitter by searching the hashtag #blogtripf1, and I’ll post on here if the opportunity arises).

Why take a blog trip? Some personal musings is a post from: 501 Places

Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green

London has developed a world famous reputation for the quality of its museums; and just as importantly for the fact that they are free. In fact throughout the UK you’ll find that most of the state-managed museums and galleries offer free admission to their visitors. This is a huge benefit to visitors who come to London to enjoy the diversity found in these fabulous places. But can this generous policy persist now that every penny of public expenditure is to be scrutinised?

On the face of it, museums are a huge drain on public resources. They cost huge amounts of money to maintain; there’s building costs, staff costs, insurance and security to consider. Then there is the need to continually update and keep fresh the content, with temporary exhibitions and new collections, and the marketing that goes with it. On top of that there is an extra price to pay for the surge in visitor numbers that a free-for-all policy produces. When London’s museums abolished admission charges in 2001 they saw an 83% increase in visitors, according to this Independent article. This has a knock-on cost in terms of more staff required to manage the museum and often more space to accommodate the extra numbers.

So why should the state (and by extension the British taxpayer) fund the cost of our national collections? For a start, there is a solid business case for this policy. There are many extra visitors coming to London (or Manchester, Leeds and other cities) as a result. These visitors will need to eat, sleep and spend valuable leisure time in these cities while visiting the attractions. The resulting collateral money spent goes a long way to supporting many small businesses who benefit from the tourist pounds, and they in turn pay taxes back into the public pot.

But there’s a greater benefit that cannot be recorded on a balance sheet. By allowing parents to take their children to see these incredible places they are able to learn in a way that a classroom or a computer can never quite manage. To experience the many wonders on offer in London’s diverse array of museums and galleries provides chidren with a unique but vitally important element of our education.

Who would deny them the chance to see the animals in the Natural History Museum, to feel a simulated earthquake in the Science Museum or to see some of the famous works of art in the city’s galleries? What is the greater cost for our society: to allow access for all to these treasures, or to restrict it to those who have the disposable income to be able to afford to go?

Whatever else is cut in this period of slashing and burning of public money, I hope that the current government thinks very carefully before embarking on a path they threatened to go down while in opposition. There are many savings that should come first before the selective denial of access to the great museums of our country.

See a related article 10 Free London Museums that I’ve written on the Discount London blog.

Why Britain’s museums must remain free is a post from: 501 Places

How many photos was enough? For the viewer 20, 30 at a push would have given a good enough insight into our friends’ holiday. Instead we sat through what felt like hundreds, each one accompanied by yet another ‘hilarous’ story. It’s so much easier now, when we are sent a link or see pictures appear in our Facebook stream. We can look when we want, if we want and most importantly at the speed we want.

So being a bore with our photos should be a thing of the past. But what about our stories? I have to admit to my guilt on this in the past. Fortunately Sam has quickly picked me up on my over-indulgence and reined in my exhuberance in sharing our travel tales with all and sundry, and I now find I test the ground before talking about travel, as the fact is that many people simply aren’t interested.

It’s a common scene to hear people engaging in a contest of reeling off the places they’ve been to, each one seemingly trying to out-perform their peers. We started our travels at a relatively young age, but it didn’t register with me at first that in these travel bragging sessions, most of those taking part often had children who were our age. When I joined in this point was not lost on my ‘competitors’.

At 25 I was understandably excited about having returned from Africa or S America and felt it normal to share this with whoever would listen, and those who wouldn’t. It’s only as the years passed that I gradually learned to enjoy our adventures and mishaps by ourselves and between ourselves, and not feel the need to bore my work colleagues and neighbours with stories that to them are likely to be irrelevant and uninteresting.

The world of online social networking has opened up a whole new area for travellers to share their passions. We can blog incessantly about our travels, and those who come across our ramblings can choose whether to spend their time reading it or not; the writer will never know unless the reader expresses an interest, and that’s surely the best solution all round.

The size of the groups with which we can share stories has expanded too. Beforehand, relatively few would have been truly curious to learn the ins and outs of a trip to Malawi for example. Now, the chances are very high that if I write about a trip to that country I’ll soon hear from others who are planning their trip there or who have recently returned, and we can communicate with genuine enthusiasm about our shared interest.

The online travel community has brought about many changes, but perhaps one of the most understated yet most important benefits is for our non-travelling friends. We have a ready and limitless audience with whom to share our stories and compare our lists. No longer do we have a excuse to inflict our travelogues on the unwilling.

Are you a travel bore? Why there’s no excuse in the internet age is a post from: 501 Places

The crowds on Mont St Michel can be a nightmare

I have to declare from the start that I am a fast walker; very fast in fact. With my long legs it’s no big deal for me to walk at over 4 mph, and if we’re rushing for a train my wife Sam will be jogging along beside me while I maintain a brisk walk.

Being quick on my feet is all well and good when strolling in the green and open spaces around our suburban home. But when trying to negotiate central London, or any major city, it can prove very frustrating. A very popular group grew on Facebook a couple of years ago berating slow walking people and wishing them something unpleasant for their lack of ambulatory urgency. While I don’t condone violence toward people on account of their walking speed, I did find it interesting to note that I was not alone in wishing that people in the city would get a move on.

For example, I can walk the length of Oxford Street in 15 minutes on a clear run at night. In the daytime however it takes at least an extra 10 minutes to negotiate the slow moving human mass that crawls along its pavements. Not only slow but unpredictable, with random stops, about turns and sideways lurches. What’s the big deal, many people will say? On the face of it, 10 minutes is nothing. But I actually find it physically awkward to walk at such a slow speed. I have to either halve my natural stride length or my cadence. I even end up tripping over the feet of those in front in my attempts to merge with the almost stationary crowd.

So what’s the solution? I find I often step into the road to make quicker progress. This is ok in some cases, although on Oxford Street, where big red buses often cruise down in near silence the consequences of a wrong step can be serious. Another option is to crowdsurf – this is the exciting thrill of darting into spaces as they appear between walking groups, sometimes even anticipating them before they form, and then jumping ahead or to the side into the next gap, leaving frowning faces from the snail-paced pedestrians left behind. Can lead to confrontation, but at least you feel as though you’re getting somewhere.

The final option is to grit your teeth and slow to the pace of the crowd, enjoying the view of the surrounding shops and people with whom you are walking (while making sure to avoid the feet of the person who has inexplicably stopped in front). This is of course the best option, and perhaps curbing my natural impatience might one day allow me to accept my fate and fall in with the crowd.

Am I alone, or do others share this bug-bear about getting around a city centre? I know others are passionate about the need to slow down and enjoy the surroundings, although I’m sure these good folks don’t advocate clogging up the busy pedestrian streets in the name of appreciating our environment. I will be interested to hear how other people manage to keep their patience when all around them are grinding the pavement.

The curse of slow-walking people is a post from: 501 Places

Alone in the Tien Shan mountains, Kyrgyzstan

I have come across these two dimensions in Myers-Briggs tests and other profiling tools when recruiting and being recruited, and wondered how we might apply this to the world of travel. On the face of it, our instinct might guide us to say that the extraverts of the world are more likely to choose to travel, to enjoy the adventure and to make the most of the experience. But I’m not convinced of this. Let’s have a look at the definitions of the two traits:

According to the Webster dictionary (via Wikipedia), extraversion is “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self”. Extraverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious. Introversion on the other hand is “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life”. Introverts tend to be more reserved and less outspoken in large groups, often taking pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, and using computers.

Seems pretty clear doesn’t it? Gregarious, enjoying human interactions, stimulated by the world around them on one hand, and reserved, solitary and concerned with the world within on the other. Surely the extraverts have it?

I should declare my bias here. On every profile I’ve completed I’ve come out as an introvert. But personal traits aside, I would still suggest that the life of travel is often best suited to an introvert. Here are just a few arguments to support this.

Firstly, life on the road involves plenty of quiet time, as a solo traveller of course but even as half of a couple. In the long hours on a plane or a bus or those sleepless eternities caused by jetlag, we are alone and inevitably drift into our own worlds; a comfortable place for the introvert, less so for their talkative counterparts.

Secondly, when interacting with people from other cultures there is often an apprehension on the part of our hosts not to offend or be offended. An introvert will typically say less, hold back for longer, but will be more careful to avoid causing offence, even if this is primarily to preserve their own internal contentment of which they are preoccupied.

And lastly, while it may appear that an extravert may be more attuned to soaking up their new surroundings, it might be the introvert who is able to quietly admire and observe the beauty of the landscapes, the people and the culture at a deeper level. Their preference to be silent and to watch and listen rather than to dive in and engage with anyone and everyone may allow them to absorb the sights, sounds and smells that surround them on a different level.

I don’t know if there is a clear answer to this question; I suspect not. We are of course made up of many traits, and our tendency to draw our energy from within or without is only one such dimension. But I would argue that, strange as it may seem on the face of it, a preference to be in one’s own company can be a benefit in travelling and experiencing the world around us.

Introverts or extraverts: who make the best travellers? is a post from: 501 Places

Phnom Penh

We were being dragged around yet another Chinese craft workshop and saw a lady making a beautiful embroidered picture. When we stopped to admire her work the owner quickly switched to salesman mode and told us it could be packaged and sold to us for only $80. We had nowhere to pack this, no inclination to buy it, and more than that no spare $80 in our budget for an unexpected purchase like this. When the news was conveyed to the lady via our interpreter/guide, she looked despondent and said something along the lines of “I’m sorry you don’t like it”.

For many years I didn’t understand the significance of this episode. As two travelling youngsters we had explained to our guide that $80 was a lot of money for us; that we had a tight budget, and that we had scrimped and saved to be able to come all the way to China. When he asked about our earnings and his eyes lit up at our reply we were quick to point out the cost of our mortgage, the price of food, clothing, fuel, taxes etc. “We’re not rich” was our message. We might earn a lot by Chinese standards but the cost of living is so high at home that much of that money goes on basic unavoidable expenses.

In the 15 years since our trip to China I’ve seen many others make the same argument, playing down our wealth when visiting countries where the majority of people live hand to mouth and have no bank account or possibility of saving. It’s done with the best of intentions, usually to try and correct the perception of a local person of their infinite wealth.

But I realise that on the most simple level we did live in a completely different world to that woman in the Chinese workshop. She didn’t need to know anything about our income or living costs to make her mind up that we were incredibly rich. We were there, and that was enough!

On our recent travels in Laos and Cambodia, most of those we spoke to had never left their borders and had only travelled to another city in their country to sort out important administration. A trip overseas was out of the question for two reasons: one is money of course, but the other is the basic concept of leisure time. The idea of having five weeks paid annual leave (or even the American 10 days) is a true luxury and any time off in the week is usually spent on family business. A day out to the nearest river or beach is often a major treat.

So when we arrive, travelling through their country for no reason other than our own desire to be there, it is this freedom to travel that gives away our wealth before any thought of finances. The fact that, in the case of our visit to China, we were young twentysomethings, makes this assumption so much stronger.

So now, when we travel to the poorer parts of Asia or Africa we no longer protest our financial modesty. We accept that assumptions will be made, that our ability to travel around the world because we want to will mark us out as priveleged. Starting off with that mindset might even allow us to interact with people in a more honest and respectful manner as a result.

You’re a tourist? You must be very rich is a post from: 501 Places

View Monopoly walk in a larger map

There they are: the 22 streets on the London Monopoly Board, along with the 4 stations that make up this most famous of board games. A glance at the map reveals two outlying points; Old Kent Road, the token entry from south London, and Marylebone Station, in the north west and a good distance away from the other streets on the board.

Fenchurch St Station

We started at Old Kent Road, and the approach to it from Elephant and Castle betrayed its designation as a brown square; down at heel and surrounded by boarded up post-war housing projects, it’s a far cry from the places we’d later be seeing.

From here it was over Tower Bridge, and a couple of short hops to Fenchurch Street and eastwards to Whitechapel. From Liverpool Street there is a long sweep of around 5 miles around the periphery of central London, heading to King’s Cross and then along Euston Road, eventually reaching Marylebone Station.

The most famous platform at Kings Cross

Having completed the outliers, we headed for Marble Arch and then down Park Lane before entering Mayfair between the exclusive motor car showrooms.

From this point the streets come thick and fast, and we clocked the remaining 18 or so streets in little over an hour. Our final stop was Fleet Street, and we arrived here just under six hours after our arrival in south London.

As for the other squares? For the prison we chose the Tower of London, while for Go To Jail we witnessed an arrest taking place on the Strand.

Chance? That was easy, with so many bookmaker shops to choose from. While Community Chest was a bit trickier. See which of these two best represent it…

COMMUNITY Chest ?

Community CHEST (?)

We found an electric company on Fleet Street and the offices of the water works on Pentonville Road. And as for Free Parking? That might be the hardest thing to spot in London, but we did find Aldi’s in Old Kent Road offering free parking for their shoppers.

The humble Vine Street

The biggest surprise? Vine Street. It’s a tiny dead end behind Piccadilly, and is hard to imagine why the maker of the Monopoly board chose this inconsequential street to sit on a world famous board.

While not the most picturesque walk on offer in London, it certainly covers a diverse mix of neighbourhoods and shows many faces of our capital city. At 15 miles it’s not a good choice for a casual stroll, although can easily be broken into two or three separate walks for those with the time to do it. The great news is that there are plenty of places to stop for food and drink along the way. In fact, while we took the option of walking the route and photographing each stop, the more common way of ‘doing the Monopoly board’ is by using the squares as a route for a massive pub crawl.

You can see photos of every square on the Monopoly board here.

Walking the London Monopoly Board is a post from: 501 Places

Here are 10 reasons why travel is a bad idea. Feel free to add more if you wish:

1. Travel is expensive. Flights, accommodation, trips and activities all cost money. And eating out all the time must drain the finances, apart from places like SE Asia, where you don’t know what you’re eating anyway. Staying at home allows you to save money that can be put to more sensible things, such as a home, a car or investment in your own future.

2. Travelling damages your career. Those who embark on long-term travel are giving a finger to the conventional world and showing their lack of commitment to a stable career path. How can you be taken seriously for a promotion where you insist on taking all of your holiday allowance and then use it to go to the other side of the world, where you can’t be reached if a client needs your help?

3. Travel destroys the environment. All those flights emit a lot of CO2, and it does make a difference. What’s so wrong with your neighbourhood that you have to pollute our planet just to get your kicks?

4. Travel doesn’t actually teach you anything. If you’re the kind of person who’s smart enough to learn the lessons from your experiences on the road, you’d have learned them at home too. If you haven’t got an open and curious mind at home, being somewhere else isn’t going to suddenly alter your cranial capacity.

5. There is no need to travel anymore. Want to know what the Taj Mahal is like? There are thousands of images, videos and articles online and in books. You can also watch many travel TV shows about your place of interest. Others have been there and done it, so why not save yourself the hassle and just follow their trip from the comfort of home.

6. Travel is dangerous. Heard about all these plane crashes? Kidnappings? Suicide attacks? Coach crashes? Tsunamis? Earthquakes? Need I go on? It’s a dangerous world out there. Your time and money might be better spent in protecting your own home and family.

7. Travel is uncomfortable. Why would you spend 20 hours on a plane, then sleep in someone else’s bed, getting attacked by nasty insects, suffering mystery sicknesses and struggling with unbearable heat and humidity? Are you mad?

8. You don’t know what you’re eating abroad. Foreign people eat all sorts of weird stuff. In some places they eat guinea pigs, in others snails, or worms, or even dogs! How do you know what they are putting on your plate when you can’t even read the menu?

9. They don’t speak English over there. What’s the point of ‘mixing with the locals’ when they can’t even speak English. How are we supposed to communicate? Even those that say they do can be hard to understand. Why would you go to a faraway place, just to find yourself struggling to be understood? I mean, I thought everyone would know English by now.

10. It’s just too much hassle. Airport security, ash clouds, changing money, passports and visas; even thinking about all that’s involved is enough to cause stress. Where’s the hassle in staying at home?

Right. That’s done the trick. I’ll finish here as I need to book some flights. Happy travels!

10 reasons why travel is a waste of time is a post from: 501 Places

New York: Manhattan skyline

One of our favourite walks in New York was to wander down from our apartment on the Upper East Side and along Madison Avenue towards Midtown. If you’re after some serious people watching, Madison Avenue in the 60s (between 60th and 69th Streets) takes some beating. On these blocks you’ll find many of the top designer boutiques, and the shop windows scream out ostentatious wealth. Women, blinged to the eyeballs, parade along the avenue (or hop along it via taxi), gathering an ever increasing array of bags as they go.

New Bond Street

One of the striking memories of walking along here is the number of middle aged ladies who bore more than a passing resemblance to the late Michael Jackson. Extensive (and expensive) sessions of plastic surgery had left some with what can only be called a patchwork face, and we would conclude that they were now paying the litigation fees that allowed so many lawyers to live in the very same neighbourhood.

Walking through London’s Mayfair this week brought back memories of our year of living in the swanky part of a big city. Among the embassies and high fee management consultancies that have their offices in the streets of this exclusive neighbourhood you’ll find businesses that scream out wealth. Aston Martin and Ferrari dealerships, the most garish interior designs and fashion stores that cater for the decidedly strange tastes of the millionaire locals.

Good taste - for some, obviously?

While we didn’t see the patchwork faces in Mayfair we certainly saw the outlandish outfits that seem to fit the requirements of the super-rich. On Bond Street, home to the likes of Jimmy Choo and Louis Vuitton, well dressed ladies strutted from store to store, while in the nearby restaurants their wealthy husbands sat smoking their large cigars and discussing the credit crunch (I’m guessing here).

As we walked through Mayfair, its leafy parks and quiet, orderly streets, we both agreed on one thing. It’s a nice neighbourhood to look at and wander around, but neither of us would feel comfortable ever calling it home (the £4m price tags for ordinary looking apartments rendered this a hypothetical discussion). I got a sense here, just as I had in our neighbourhood in Manhattan, that there was little feeling of being part of a local community. Residents here had put up walls around themselves; both physical in the form of their secure homes and apartments, and emotional in terms of their detachment from their surroundings. (While living in NYC and doing my daily walk to work along 2nd Avenue I was constantly amazed at the number of people who would talk to themselves without any inhibition)

Mayfair life

Earlier this month we were on the remote Scottish island of Barra and felt the exact opposite. People there may not have easy access to many of the trappings of material wealth. But their strong sense of community brought comfort and happiness and allowed them to compensate in ingenious ways for the lack of easy access to the mainland, and the conveniences that a population mass can offer. It’s quite a contrast to witness.

Next time you’re in London and fancy a wander through  an interesting neighbourhood, head west and go to Mayfair. It’s well worth a look, even if you might feel like a stranger while you’re there.

Among the super-rich: a stroll through Mayfair is a post from: 501 Places

On this first anniversary of 501 Places I thought I would take stock and consider some of the things I’ve learned in my 12 months of blogging.

1. I blog, so that makes me a blogger, in the same way that I travel and that makes me a traveller. It’s something I do but it’s not a label I immediately use when people ask me what I do. That question usually means “how do you make a living?” and being a blogger doesn’t (as yet) contribute in any meaningful way toward that.

2. On a similar note, although 501 Places is a travel blog I’m reluctant to call myself a travel writer. I did at one time toy with pursuing this route, but I since figured that just because I travel and I write, I shouldn’t necessarily feel obliged or entitled to put the two together. As a freelance writer I have the ability to earn the money I need to travel on my terms and in my time, through my copywriting, website content and magazine (non-travel) work. If I choose to write about my travels, I do so primarily for my own satisfaction. There are some excellent travel writers out there, and I take the opportunity to read their work and try to learn from them, without wishing to make the sacrifices to lifestyle that they have to make in order to eek out a living. I admire their commitment to their craft, and do it without a shred of envy.

3. I’ve learned over the last year that I prefer to focus on travelling when I’m away and leave the writing until I get home. I did take my laptop to SE Asia in December and managed to write several posts while out there, but it was probably the only time that I’ve really found my blog to be a chore. Since that trip we’ve travelled twice and the laptop has stayed at home, while I’ve rested my Twitter account for the duration of the trip. I just feel that there’s only a short time to enjoy being somewhere, while there is plenty of time to write about my experiences when I’m back home. I accept that this attitude alone will hinder any plans for world travel blog domination; and that’s ok with me.

4. I really enjoy writing my posts and communicating with those who take the time to read them. If I didn’t take great enjoyment from blogging then I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing it. I mean, why would I? What other reason would I have? If it’s the money, then anyone (bar a very select few) will agree that a job on the minimum wage will pay as well if not better.

5. Ruthless editing is essential. It’s easy when I write commissioned pieces elsewhere. They are checked, changed to fit around other stories or images, headlines added and typos eliminated. A professional editor makes all the difference. When I blog, I’m on my own (although my wife does an excellent job of reading my posts every evening and spotting my typos!) It falls to me to re-read my work, and all too often I find that a paragraph I wrote with some satisfaction turns out to be irrelevant or distracting to the post. It hurts, but sometimes I have to just delete a whole section of my work to make the post read better.

6. It took me several months to work out what I like to write about. My early posts were very much about destinations. Then I learned that I got more pleasure from analysing our travel behaviour; from considering the different aspects of cultures and their consequences; and of being contrary in challenging some of our most commonly held beliefs. Spinning this into destination themed posts, as I tried to do in SE Asia, gave me the most satisfaction.

7. I can never predict the post that will get most attention. There are the posts that I think about, plan carefully and quite honestly get excited about posting. I check them carefully and press publish feeling great about creating what I think is a creditable piece of writing. And then nothing. Nada. Zilch. By contrast some of my most popular posts have been churned out in a short time and I’ve published without feeling good about them, only to see them receive thousands of hits. Even after a year, I confess I’m a lousy judge of what will receive most attention.

8. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t post for a few days or have a day off. I was fixated at first about posting every single day. Then when we travelled in SE Asia for a month my postings became less frequent. Guess what happened? That’s right: nothing. My traffic dropped off for a while, and then came back once I started writing again. Now I’m more relaxed about when I post. I’ll usually post three to four times a week, but if I’m snowed under with other work then that’s just fine. No-one’s going to miss me, and no-one is going to get hurt.

9. Have I mentioned that I have great fun with 501 Places? I still look forward to writing my posts and I get pleasure from replying to comments and engaging in conversations about my topics via Twitter or by email. I’ve also been really lucky to have met face to face so many of the great writers who I’ve got to know thanks to 501 Places. Looking back at my archive of a year’s posts I do get a feeling of satisfaction that I’ve managed to put so many of my thoughts and experiences in writing.

I look forward to enjoying whatever the next 12 months will hold in store for me with 501 Places. As for advice to those starting out with a new travel blog? The main thing is to write with freedom, enthusiasm and expression about the things you enjoy writing about, and not worry about your site statistics and reader numbers. Blogging is a great way to make friends, become a better writer and even a way of expressing your own thoughts and attitudes in a more articulate way. It’s up to you to love what you do; if others like what you write, the traffic stats will take care of themselves.

501 Places is 1 year old today: a few reflections from the journey is a post from: 501 Places